40. Go to the Unemployment Office

How do you explain the "Tumblr-era of the Internet" in French?

A few months ago I was laid off from my full-time copywriting job. Can you guess what a common reaction to this news was from French people?

A: “I'm sorry. That's really tough.”

B: “Ugh. I'm so jealous.”

C: “Sweet. Now you can get into a bunch of museums for free.”

D: “...and get a discount on movie tickets!”

The answer is E: all of the above. But what they didn't mention was the obligatory trip to the unemployment office, which is a requirement if you would like to receive France's very generous unemployment benefits.

Another reason for the in-person appointment is so you can meet the counselor that is personally assigned to help you throughout your unemployment journey. When I arrived, we went over my CV, which I was ashamed to realize was in English. Thus, she had a lot of questions.

My résumé is very standard for a geriatric millenial with a Bachelor of Fine Arts who spent the entirety of the Obama administration in Brooklyn. Meaning: most of my work happens to be Internet-related and many of the sites or organizations I once worked for no longer exist. This proved a bit difficult to explain to my middle-aged counselor.

However, she was eager to help me, and for that, I was grateful. First, she asked, "How many years have you been using the Internet?" She was filling out a form that listed my skills and years of experience, and she figured "Internet user" was one of them.

I had to stop and think before answering. Does catfishing in AOL chatrooms in junior high count as entry-level experience? If so, then I have over two decades of dedicated, borderline obsessive experience using the Internet. She was impressed by this, and added it to the form.

Then she continued to look at my CV and asked me what the heck was "Brooklyn Magazine's 2018 30 Under 30 List"? In my meager B2 French, I tried to explain to her that it was a list of young people that a local magazine deemed successful based on completely arbitrary, often times baffling criteria. Oh, and the magazine did go broke and briefly shut down for a year or two. She nodded and added this under the "prix ​​et distinctions" part of the form.

This continued for a good half hour, and we both tried our best to make me sound like a desirable candidate in a world where every copywriting job interview just turns into a roundtable on AI. (I also briefly had to explain ChatGPT to her.) Could this entire meeting have been an email? Or done by myself on the France Travail website? Maybe. Probably. But I did appreciate her helping me, and now I get why people were reacting to my French unemployment with a modicum of envy.

After all that work we did uploading my CV and experience, I have yet to get any offers, but as my counselor told me, patience is key. (She was actually saying this in reference to how slow the government site was loading, but it still applies.) So in the meantime, I'll enjoy my free museum visits and maybe go for an occasional discounted movie.